Contributor

By Eric AndersonTechnology

Contributor episodes

August 03, 2022Suborbital with Connor Hicks
Eric Anderson (@ericmander) and Connor Hicks (@cohix) launch into detail on Suborbital, an open-source project that allows developers to create WebAssembly projects embedded in other applications. Connor conceived of Suborbital while frustrated with the cold start problem that can impact Function-as-a-Service platforms. Today, Suborbital collaborates with companies like Microsoft on a community called Wasm Builders, dedicated to sharing and developing innovations in WebAssembly applications.
Subscribe to Contributor on Substack for email notifications, and join our Slack community!
In this episode we discuss:
The three tentpoles of WebAssembly that make it a useful foundation for Suborbital

Surprising niche use cases for WebAssembly like IoT and data modeling

Open-source tools in the Suborbital ecosystem

Putting focus on building a larger Wasm Builders community

Connor’s thoughts on how WebAssembly can improve edge computing
Links:
Suborbital

WebAssembly

Suborbital Compute

Atmo

Reactr

Subo

Sat

Firecracker
39 min
July 20, 2022Milvus with Frank Liu
Eric Anderson (@ericmander) and Frank Liu (@frankzliu) talk about Milvus, the open-source vector database built for scalable similarity search. Vector databases are built to search, index and store embeddings, a requirement for powerful AI applications. Frank is Director of Operations at Zilliz, the company that stewards the project. Tune in to find out how Milvus is the database for the AI era.
Subscribe to Contributor on Substack for email notifications, and join our Slack community!
In this episode we discuss:
A crash course on embeddings and vector databases

Using Milvus for logo search, crypto predictions, drug discovery, and more

Other open-source projects at Zilliz that complement Milvus

“Embedding Everything”

How Milvus incorporates tunable consistency to its search process
Links:
Milvus

Zilliz

Towhee

Attu

Feder
Other episodes:
Clickhouse with Alexey Milovidov and Ivan Blinkov
Correction:
Milvus is based on a “shared storage” architecture, not “shared nothing.”
28 min
July 06, 2022Apache Beam with Kenn Knowles and Pablo Estrada
Eric Anderson (@ericmander) reunites with old colleagues Kenn Knowles (@KennKnowles) and Pablo Estrada (@polecitoem) for a conversation on Apache Beam, the open-source programming model for data processing. The trio once worked together at Google, and Beam was a turning point in the history of open-source there. Today, both Kenn and Pablo are members of the Beam PMC, and join the show with the inside scoop on Beam’s past, present and future.
In this episode we discuss:
Transitioning Beam to the Apache Way

How “inner source” works at Google

Thoughts on the relationship between batch processing and streaming

Some ways that community “power users” have contributed to Beam

Information on Beam Summit 2022, the first onsite summit since COVID began
The first few people to register can use code BEAM_POD_INV for a discount on tickets!

Links:
Apache Beam

Apache Spark

Apache Flink

Apache Nemo

Apache Samza

Apache Crunch

MapReduce paper

MillWheel paper

FlumeJava paper

Dataflow paper

Beam Summit 2022 Website
Other episodes:
TensorFlow with Rajat Monga
39 min
June 22, 2022Temporal (Part 2) with Maxim Fateev and Dominik Tornow
Eric Anderson (@ericmander) returns to Temporal with co-founder Maxim Fateev (@mfateev) and principal engineer Dominik Tornow (@DominikTornow). When Maxim joined us in September of 2020, the company called their project a “workflow orchestrator.” Today, Temporal has grown in popularity and usability, but the terminology around that abstraction has changed. Tune in to track the evolution of what Maxim calls a genuinely “new category of software.”
In this episode we discuss:
New features and developments in the last 2 years

The proper way to pronounce “Temporal”

How Temporal guarantees that workflow execution actually runs to execution

Describing Temporal as a new pair of glasses

Replay, Temporal’s first developer conference on August 25-26, in Seattle
Links:
Temporal

Cadence

Apache Cassandra

Replay
People mentioned:
Samar Abbas (@samarabbas77)
Other episodes:
Temporal with Maxim Fateev

Apache Cassandra with Patrick McFadin
41 min
June 08, 2022Scarf with Avi Press
Eric Anderson (@ericmander) interviews Avi Press (@avi_press) about Scarf, the distribution platform for open-source software that facilitates analytics and commercialization. Scarf offers a set of tools that allows founders and maintainers to understand adoption of their products, including Scarf Gateway, which provides a central access point to containers and packages. From there, open-source developers can connect with the people that rely on their work.
In this episode we discuss:
Why you can’t rely on Github as a source of comprehensive data about open-source software

Tracing a user’s journey interacting with a project across multiple platforms

How better observability allows maintainers to make better software

Inspiring indie maintainers to commercialize their projects

The privilege of being able to work in open-source, and how Scarf can enable a more inclusive developer community
Links:
Scarf

Tidelift

Gitcoin

OpenTeams

Aviyel
29 min
May 25, 2022Rasgo with Patrick Dougherty
Eric Anderson (@ericmander) and Patrick Dougherty (@cpdough) talk about Rasgo, the data transformation platform for MLOps that makes generating SQL easy. The team at Rasgo recently open-sourced a package called RasgoQL, that allows users to execute SQL queries against a data warehouse using Python syntax. Tune in to find out how Rasgo aims to bridge an important gap in the Modern Data Stack.
In this episode we discuss:
The advantages of offering both a low-code/no-code UI and a Python interface

"How can a data scientist, without needing full-time resources from data engineering, be somewhat self-sufficient in data prep and able to deliver those insights without a massive human capital investment needed?"

Where Rasgo fits into the world of feature stores

Why one Rasgo user took a trip to a wind farm in Texas

Eric’s predictions for the future of data prep and transformation
Links:
Rasgo

RasgoQL

DuckDB

Delta Lake
People mentioned:
Jared Parker (@jaredtparker_)
29 min
May 11, 2022Feast with Willem Pienaar
Eric Anderson (@ericmander) and Willem Pienaar (@willpienaar) talk about Feast, the open-source feature store for machine learning. Feature stores act as a bridge between models and data, and allow data scientists to ship features into production without the need for engineers. Willem co-created Feast at Gojek, and later teamed up with the folks at Tecton to back the project.
In this episode we discuss:
The value of feature stores in MLOps

What happens when you open-source too early

Why most open-source code has nothing to hide

Bringing an open-source project to an existing company

Good and bad use cases for a feature store
Links:
Feast

Tecton

Turing

Merlin

Kubeflow

apply() Conference
People mentioned:
Mike Del Balso

Kevin Stumpf (@kevinmstumpf)

Ajey Gore (@AjeyGore)

Demetrios Brinkmann (@Dpbrinkm)

Wes McKinney (@wesmckinn)
Other episodes:
Flyte with Ketan Umare

Great Expectations with Abe Gong and Kyle Eaton
33 min
April 27, 2022Flyte with Ketan Umare
Eric Anderson (@ericmander) and Ketan Umare (@ketanumare) discuss Flyte, the open-source workflow automation platform for large-scale machine learning and data use cases. Ketan is a former engineer at Lyft, where he created Flyte to help models in Pricing, Locations, ETA, and more. Today, the project allows machine learning developers everywhere to bring their ideas from conception to production.
In this episode we discuss:
How Flyte combines compute with parts of a workflow engine in a way that is best for the user

The importance of reliable fares and ETA predictions at a ride-sharing app

A progenitor to Flyte called “Better Airflow”

Ketan’s innovative approach to bringing typing to machine learning workloads

Why Flyte landed at the Linux Foundation
Links:
Flyte

Union.ai

Apache Airflow

Kubeflow

Luigi

MLTwist
Other episodes:
Great Expectations with Abe Gong and Kyle Eaton

Envoy Proxy with Matt Klein
37 min
April 13, 2022Activeloop with Davit Buniatyan
Eric Anderson (@ericmander) meets with Davit Buniatyan (@DBuniatyan) of Activeloop, the database for AI. Davit was inspired to found Activeloop while working on large datasets in a neuroscience research lab at Princeton. Powering the technology at Activeloop is Hub, the open-source dataset format for AI applications. Join us to learn how Hub promises to enhance and expand various verticals in deep learning.
In this episode we discuss:
Reconfiguring traditional ML tooling for the cloud

Connectomics - working with thin slices of a mouse brain with neuroscientist Sebastian Seung

Choosing between university, a start-up, and open-source

Davit’s original product, that ran computation on crypto mining GPUs on a distributed scale

Focusing on different data modalities for computer vision
Links:
Activeloop

Activeloop Hub

Apache Parquet

Apache Spark

TensorFlow

Snowflake

Databricks

Timescale
People mentioned:
Sebastian Seung (@SebastianSeung)
Other episodes:
TensorFlow with Rajat Monga
31 min
March 30, 2022Unikraft with Alexander Jung and Simon Kuenzer
Eric Anderson (@ericmander), Alexander Jung (@nderjung) and Simon Kuenzer (Github: @skuenzer) get technical on Unikraft, the open-source unikernel development kit. Unikernels are specialized, high performing OS images that have the potential to revolutionize virtualization. Unikraft makes unikernels easy to use by prioritizing modularity, security, and POSIX-compatibility.
In this episode we discuss:
How Unikraft seeks wider adoption of unikernels in real-world applications

Unikraft’s background in research and academia

Bottom-up as well as top-down specialization

Building a community with a large proportion of students
Links:
Unikraft

Unikraft: Fast, Specialized Unikernels the Easy Way

Xen Project

MirageOS

HermitCore

Firecracker
28 min